Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Protest Renewed in Cairo, Ever-Present Beyond Damascus

Al Jazeera English on Saturday's events in Egypt, from the sentencing of former President Mubarak to mass protests

See also Bahrain 1st-Hand: "I Was Tortured by Prince Nasser"
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Largest Protests Ever?

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2025 GMT: Libya. Members of an elite unit set up by the Government to rein in militias have been accused of kidnapping and severely beating a prominent surgeons.

Salem Forjani, a heart surgeon working for the Ministry of Health, was seized on 17 May when he went to Tripoli Medical Centre to carry out the Ministry's order to remove the director, who was accused of links with the Qaddafi regime.

Instead, Forjani was confronted by members of the Government's Supreme Security Committee, who dragged Forjani through the hospital, beating him unconscious in front of the staff.

A fellow medic photographed Forjani being carried, shirtless and spreadeagled, down the hospital's ambulance ramp while an SSC soldier threatened to shoot unarmed hospital security staff giving chase.

The SSC troops bundled the doctor into a car and incarcerated him in a base at Naklia, a suburb of Tripoli, where he was beaten and kicked so hard in the groin that he was left with a ruptured testicle. For five days neither his family nor the Ministry of Health could find him or get confirmation that he was still alive.

Finally, after Forjani had been moved to a second facility, at Tripoli's Mitiga Airport, the SSC contacted the Ministry and released him.

The surgeon is in hiding in Tripoli, having been warned of reprisals if he speaks out.

2010 GMT: Syria. The Coalition of Free Damascenes For Peaceful Change summarises that at least seven people have been killed and 100 wounded in the fighting in the Damascus suburb of Douma, claiming that most of the casualties were injured in the head, the chest, or the abdomen as they were targeted by snipers. The CFDPC provides the names of the slain.

Claimed footage of men retrieving a body, while under gunfire, in the suburb:

2000 GMT: Syria. Human Rights Watch has reportedly obtained a list of journalists wanted by the Syrian authorities for entering the country illegally --- included are Arwa Damon of CNN, Paul Wood of the BBC, and Stuart Ramsay of Britain's Sky News:

1950 GMT: Egypt. Tahrir Square in Cairo tonight, with an effigy hanging from a traffic beam:

1720 GMT: Syria. A cameraman, filming the move of regime tanks to the town of Hayyan, is caught in a firefight:

1713 GMT: Syria. A rally in Jarjanaz in Idlib Province today:

1628 GMT: Syria. We have been getting reports throughout the day of clashes in the Damascus suburb of Syria, with footage of smoking rising over the city and a claimed video of a bus carrying security forces set alight. Claimed footage of regime forces firing their weapons:

1621 GMT: Syria. Writing for Al-Monitor, Ali Milhim claims the Free Syrian Army controls 60% of Homs, with regime control "diminished to a small strip in the southeastern part" of Syria's third-largest city.

1333 GMT: Syria. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised President Assad, "So far, I haven't seen him approach reforms with a democratic understanding. He is still approaching issues with...an autocratic approach. I believe that it is very hard to achieve peace in Syria as long as this approach continues."

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, at a joint news conference Sunday with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has declared, "We support creating a buffer zone in Syria which the oppressed can take refuge in...but this is the responsibility of the UN Security Council as the Arab League can't do this."

"The real solution belies in protecting the Syrian people from the harsh military," al-Faisal continued. "The people are unarmed whereas the regime receives weapons from several [countries]."

The Foreign Minister accused President Assad of "manoeuvring" through delay: "Every initiative has been accepted by the Syrian regime and was not implemented. This is a way used by the regime to gain time."

Referring to UN envoy Kofi Annan, al-Faisal said, "[He] will present his report (on Syria) in a few weeks....It must be clear, straightforward, precise and transparent," Prince Saud said. "We hope the United Nations takes a firm stance."

1151 GMT: Syria. The Guardian carries the claimed account of a major in the Syrian Army who defected to the opposition after he saw pro-regime militia ("shabiha") carry out last week's slaying of more than 100 civilians in Houla.

Major Jihad Raslan said he was in the Syrian Air Force in the port city of Tartous, but was in Houla on leave when the town was shelled just after Friday Prayers on 25 May, then invaded by the shabiha.

Raslan said he was in his house, around 300 metres from the site of the first killings in the village of Taldous, when several hundred men whom he knew to be shabiha rode into town in cars and army trucks and on motorbikes: "They were shouting: 'Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad.' It was very obvious who they were."

Raslan said the killings in his area were over in around 15 minutes, while the attacks in other parts of Houla continued until the early hours of Saturday.

"Those victims who were slaughtered are people that I knew well," Raslan said. "These children I knew well, personally. I ate with their families. I had social ties with them. The regime cannot lie about these people, who they were and what they did to them. It was a brutal act by the regime against people who were with the revolution."

1116 GMT: Syria. A pre-dawn march in the Jobar section of Damascus:

1104 GMT: Yemen. Six insurgents and a soldier have been killed in the continuing offensive by Government forces in the southern province of Abyan.

A military official claimed, "The army is controlling most of [the outskirts" of the provincial capital, "but we have not yet taken over central Zinjibar."

He said the army is still trying to control Zinjibar's remaining northwestern entrances to "cut it off from Jaar and Shaqra", 35 kilometres (22 miles) to the east and controlled by militants since June 2011.

1058 GMT: Egypt. Hamdeen Sabahi, who finished third in the first round of the Presidential election, amid the protesting crowd in Tahrir Square in Cairo last night (Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters):

0913 GMT: Syria. The Local Co-ordination Councils of Syria claim five people have been killed during President Assad's speech --- two in Aleppo, two in Homs, and one in Hama.

0908 GMT: Syria. Without explicitly saying "Houla", Assad has framed last week's mass killing of more than 100 civilians as the projection of "media whores" and cast it as an example of sectarian conflict threatening Syria.

He repeats that this is part of the "outside war" and calls on citizens to unite behind the regime to fight this.

0900 GMT: Syria. President Assad is still speaking. The address has nothing to indicate any political shift in the conflict --- it is unlikely to sway many minds, as Assad's emphasis has been on bolstering his support. For the record, Assad's key points so far:

1. His regime is pursuing reforms, as the election of the Parliament indicates.

2. His regime is fighting a "war" against "terrorists".

3. Some of the opposition, "inside this dome", are in dialogue with the regime over reforms; others have unwisely allied with the terrorists.

4. The regime is calling on all to lay down arms and join the dialogue.

0815 GMT: Syria. President Assad has begun his address to the new Parliament.

0700 GMT: Syria. Syrian state TV has tried to counter claims of regime responsibility for last week's mass killing in Houla, airing testimony from two alleged witnesses to the slaying of at least 108 people.

The faces of the witnesses were blurred, supposedly for their protection. One said that he was staying with a group of militants, who were planning the attacks, on the previous day. He said that the militants came from several different regions and were armed with heavy weapons.

The other witness claimed that the targets in the massacre had been mainly pro-government villagers.

The regime's report on the incident claims 800 heavily-armed militants were involved. Syria’s Foreign Ministry has also written to the UN Security Council, accusing Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of conspiring with US-backed mercenaries to carry out attacks.

0610 GMT: Egypt. Events in Cairo and other Egyptian cities overtook Syria in Saturday's headlines as tens of thousands of people, most of them aligning themselves with a "new Revolution", gathered to protest the verdicts and sentences in the trial of former President Hosni Mubarak, his sons, and other officials of the former regime.

While Mubarak and his last Minister of Interior, Habib El Adly, recieved life sentences, demonstrators were angered that they were not blamed for ordering the killing of protesters during the uprising of January-February 2011, only of failing to prevent the deaths. There was also fury at the dropping of corruption charges against Mubarak's two sons --- although they remain in prison on other allegations of graft --- and of the acquittal of six top security officials.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, who will be in the run-off for the Presidency in two weeks, appeared in Tahrir Square in Cairo last night. So did Khaled Ali, Hamdeen Sabahi, and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, all of whom stood in the first round of the election.

Syria. While overshadowed on Saturday, Syria was far from quiet. Demonstrations and general strikes took place across the country, as did regime raids and shelling. At least 27 people were reportedly killed by the security forces.